Arrangement of a store room for residential buildings comprising stacked apartments

ABSTRACT

The arrangement of a store room for residential buildings comprising stacked apartments is presented. In such apartments, which are designed similarly to the apartment presented in EP 1455033B1, an external room  12  and a living room  11  have an elevated ceiling height. This elevation allows a good light infiltration to deep into the living area. In order to achieve an extensive utilization of space without curtailing the living comfort achieved with a high ceiling, in the shadow region  18,  i.e. in the upper region of the living room  11  of the lower apartment  1,  a store room  23  is built in in the manner of a swallow&#39;s nest.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates to the arrangement of a store room forresidential buildings comprising stacked apartments, according to thepreamble to Claim 1.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

In an apartment block housing a large number of apartments, a stackedarrangement of single-storey apartments is expedient. In order, however,to offer the pleasing sense of spaciousness, the apartment can be oftwin-storey construction in the living area and, above all, in anoutside region of a balcony. Such a construction lends itself in thefirst place, of course, to new buildings in wholly built-up areas. It isalso conceivable, however, for residential concepts of this type also tobe used for barn conversions or industrial buildings, in which it is aquestion of leaving the outer building contour where it is forsimplified building permission.

In Patent EP 1455033B1, an apartment block comprising stacked apartmentsis presented. The apartment block presented in this patent consists of alarge number of apartments. The entire living area of each apartment ison one level. Each apartment respectively comprises a normal-heightliving part and a double-height living part. The normal-height livingpart of a lower apartment is disposed beneath the normal-height livingpart of the above-situated apartment. The floor of the double-heightliving part of the lower apartment is thus located on the same level asthe floor of the normal-height living part. The internal wall of thedouble-height living part of the lower apartment is simultaneously awall of the normal-height living part of the upper apartment. In theconcept of Patent EP 1455033B1, this wall is provided without anopening, since such an opening would mutually disturb the private sphereof the two apartments.

One absolute advantage of this arrangement is the generous lightinfiltration in the region of the double-height living part, which,despite large depth of accommodation, enables light to be brought intothe whole of the living area, so that there can be no sense of living asin a cave. It has proved in practice that, specifically in urban areas,such concepts, above all for freehold apartments, meet an absoluterequirement.

A drawback in the arrangement presented by EP 1455033B1 is the lostspace in that part of the living room which is of double-heightconfiguration and is facing away from the outer façade. Whilst thedouble-height ceiling in the outside region serves for good lightinfiltration and a sense of roominess, in the double-height part of theliving room a volume is formed of which no use is made in terms of lightinfiltration. The sense of roominess, however, can already be achievedwith a high ceiling having less than double the height of the livingroom.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present invention now sets out, by reducing the ceiling height inthe double-height living area, to form a store room for the apartmentlocated above this living area, without the light infiltration andliving comfort of the living room of the lower apartment beingsubstantially affected.

This object is achieved by the arrangement of a store room forresidential buildings comprising stacked apartments, having the featuresof Patent Claim 1. Further features according to the invention emergefrom the dependent claims and the advantages thereof are discussed inthe following description.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

In the drawings:

FIG. 1 shows a section through an apartment;

FIG. 2 shows a section through an apartment with store room;

FIG. 3 shows a perspective representation of two apartments situated oneabove the other.

The figures represent preferred proposed illustrative embodiments, whichare discussed as examples in the following description.

DESCRIPTION OF SPECIFIC PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS OF THE INVENTION

The concept described in EP 1455033B1 describes a living area 10, adouble-height living room 11 and a double-height external room 12 (FIG.1). In order to be able to realize such concepts, the apartments must bestacked in a manner similar to that described in Patent EP 1455033B1. Anadvantage of this arrangement is, for example, the light infiltrationrepresented in FIG. 1, which allows daylight to infiltrate far insidethe apartment, whilst the sense of roominess is also given by the highrooms of the apartment.

On the other hand, in a lower apartment 1, the large shadows 17, 18 and19 are present in the upper parts of the living area 10, high livingroom 11 and external room 12 (FIG. 1). The result of this arrangement isthat, in the shadow region 18 of the living room 11 of the lowerapartment 1 (FIG. 1), a relatively large volume which is not reached bythe light infiltration is formed. This does little to help produce animproved sense of roominess. Moreover, the partition wall 30, which isdisposed between the external room 12 and the living room 11 and isnormally made of glass, is expense to buy and difficult to keep clean.

Apartment of this type are sought, above all, in urban areas, since theyallow a considerably improve sense of roominess, even though the edificeis situated in a densely built-up area. From a cost aspect, suchapartments are in the medium category of the ranges available. They areoften sold on a freehold basis. Such apartments are bought by people whodo not wish to manage and care for a one-family dwelling but who neitherare willing to relinquish the comforts of a spacious dwelling. It isimmediately clear that, in such an apartment, though residents livecomfortably at relatively low cost, there is very little storage spaceavailable for all those objects which they would prefer not to have inthe living room, but would nevertheless like within rapid access. Thecellar is an unsuitable place of storage for these utensils.

If such an apartment is used by a firm as an office, the high livingroom is a very representative and pleasant conference room. For asmall-sized firm or a small branch of a large company, sufficient officespace is present to offer a workplace to two to three employees. Foroffices, specifically, a rapidly accessible archive room is veryimportant.

Solutions to such requirements are offered by the inventive concept(FIG. 2), in the upper part of the high living room 11, the volume inthe shade 18 is filled by a store room 23, which is accessible either bymeans of stairs or a ladder from the living room 18′ of the apartment1′, or else only from the living area 20 of the above-situated apartment2. Although, in the lower apartment 1′ (FIG. 2), the ceiling of the highliving room 11′ is no longer of the same height as that of the externalroom 12, an elevated room height, and thus the sense of roominess, isnevertheless maintained. The light infiltration is not therebycurtailed, but the shadow region 18′ of the living room 11′ is smallerand the volume is put to better use.

In order to safeguard the geometric relationships in such a way that thegood light infiltration and the ample and pleasing sense of roominessare maintained, the adopted ratios of the ceiling heights of theindividual rooms in relation to the living area 10 or 10′ of the lowerapartment 1 or 1′ are intended to be at the value 1. Depending on thesituation and the regulations, this height will generally range between2.4 m and 3.0 m. In historic buildings, the façades of which must bepreserved for townscape or monument preservation reasons, the ceilingheights can most definitely, however, be greater or smaller.

Relative to these ceiling heights of the living area 10, the externalroom 12 will have 1.5 to 2.5 times the height. Normally, it willprobably rise to roughly double the height of the living area 10. Thehigh living room 11′ will have 1.1 to 1.5 times the height. The storeroom 23 lies above the living room 11′. In order to give the latter thedesired ceiling elevation, the store room 23 must have less ceilingheight. It will only reach 0.7 to 0.9 times the ceiling height of theliving area 10. For a room which is normally built without windowopening and is used as a store and storage room, however, this will beof minor importance.

1. Arrangement of a store room for residential buildings comprising stacked apartments, in which both an external room and a living room have an elevated ceiling height which allows a good light infiltration to deep into the living area and nevertheless permits an extensive utilization of space, yet maintains the living comfort achieved with a high ceiling, wherein a store room (23) is built in the shadow region (18), i.e. in the upper region of the living room (11) of the lower apartment (1).
 2. Arrangement of a store room according to claim 1, wherein only the shadow region (18′) of the living room (11′) of the lower apartment (1′) is affected by said built-in store room (23), so that the light infiltration into the living area of the lower apartment (1′) is not substantially reduced.
 3. Arrangement of a store room according to claim 1, wherein said store room (23) can be reached only from the above-situated apartment (2).
 4. Arrangement of a store room according to claim 1, wherein, relative to the room height of the living area (10), the external room (12) has 1.5 to 2.5 times the height, the high living room (11′) has 1.1 to 1.5 times the height, and the store room (23) above the high living room (11′) has 0.7 to 0.9 times the height. 